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Description

When Kimi and George found out they were having a girl, they made one thing clear: the nursery wouldn't be pink.

"We wanted to have fun with the room and, like the rest of our home, we wanted it to represent things that are meaningful to us as a family," said Kimi. "We are both from the Caribbean — George is from Puerto Rico and I'm from the Dominican Republic — so an island or beach theme was our first thought."

Design Inspiration

Thus inspired, they settled upon a color scheme of mint and coral accented with brass and gold. Kimi is in the master's program of interior design at the Corcoran College of Art + Design and, like any good designer, she popped her palette and furniture ideas into SketchUp for reference throughout the project. After months of planning and DIYs (see Kimi's description below detailing the stenciling and pelmet process), the room was ready just in time for Olivia's February arrival. And the family — 2-year-old Maltese, Tèo, included — couldn't be happier with the results.

Favorite Items

It's hard to choose one since we put so much love and effort into this room, from the DIY window treatments, painted dresser and crown molding to the starfish stencil on the walls, we just love it all as a whole. But if there's one piece that I think is very special its the vintage map of the Caribbean that hangs over the dresser. It's a copy of a late 19th century original, which we obtained on eBay from a collector in the UK. As the baby grows we want her to know where her family comes from and learn about her heritage so this piece is not only perfect as far as a decorative element but it also has a lot of meaning to us.

Advice

Have a plan ahead of time and decide how you want the space to feel. I always start my projects by deciding the color scheme and then everything else falls into place. It's also good to develop a budget and an overall wish list of the items you would like in the nursery — that way you focus your energy on obtaining items that complement your design and not get too carried away with all of the baby stuff that's out there. Since I had a specific design in mind I was able to come across pieces that were part of that plan at random times. For example, the elephant lamp was a great, unexpected find at HomeGoods. I knew I wanted an animal-shaped lamp and I had my eye on the giraffe and elephant lamps by Jonathan Adler, which run around $400. But when a friend of mine and I were shopping one day we spotted a similar elephant-shaped lamp for $30! The lamp shade was white and blue but I purchased it anyway and took a white drum shade that I had on another lamp at home to make it work with the room design.